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www.celtic-connection.com
FEBRUARY 2009
Burns and Homecoming Light Up Dumfries
EDINBURGH - Three days before Burns Day, the River Nith at Dumfries bears no resemblance to Burns' description of it
In The Banks of Nith he expressed his preference for the Nith over the Thames and went on to say "How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales/Where bounding hawthorns gaily bloom/And sweetly spread thy sloping dales/Where lambkins wanton through the broom."
With the great poet's 250th anniversary approaching, the lower Nith has breached its banks, and the adjacent Whitesands parking area is a loch. Water laps against shop fronts and houses fifty yards from its normal containment.
Yellow "No Parking" signs bob like anchor buoys and the current propels a shopping trolley into one of the streets that lead to the town centre. A council worker stands to the rim of his wellies like King Canute.
Media representatives from all over Britain are arriving in Dumfries for the poet's birthday and the launch of Homecoming Scotland 2009 which is to culminate in a lantern procession and mass gathering on the Whitesands.
No wonder, then, that locals gather on the ancient stone bridge and gaze anxiously up the valley in search of blue sky.
On Burns Day itself the weather is fine and Graeme Murdoch and I open "This is who we are," an exploration in photographs and text of the Scottish experience in Canada.
We are in Dumfries town centre's Mid Steeple which was built in 1707 and has been recently refurbished by the local authorities. The building was once the town jail with the cells located on the second floor where the exhibition is now arranged.
This makes for a nice contrast between the people featured in a "Scottish Voices from Canada" section who have travelled far from Scotland, their voices, until now, muted at home, and some of the previous occupants of the same room who were plucked from the community for their belligerence and prevented from going anywhere.
MICHAEL ELCOCK with his wife, novelist and poet Marilyn Bowering.
"It is an immensely powerful thing to leave. When I left Scotland I was 21
and it was clear to
me when I left that I would never go back. That was a devastating piece
of understanding..."
HARRY MCGRATH, Cultural Connect Scotland; Linda Fabiani, Scotland's MinisterforEurope, External Affairs and Culture; Graeme Murdoch, Cultural Connect Scotland; Jack Groom, Provost of Dumfries; Michael Russell, Scotland's Ministerfor Environment.
The first floor of the Mid Steeple is packed for the opening which is presided over by Linda Fabiani, Scotland's Culture Minister, ably assisted by Jack Groom the Provost of Dumfries and Michael Russell, Minister for Environment.
When the speeches are done and the throng has passed through the exhibition, there's the sound of the pipes and First Minister Alex Salmond passes the window followed by some 15,000 people bearing lanterns and bound for Whitesands.
We lock up and fall in at the back of Salmond's army where we are joined by a small group of rubicund reinforcements emerging from Burns' favourite howff, the Globe Inn.
At the Whitesands the water has miraculously receded and the area is now a sea of humanity.
Lanterns aloft, they look to the river where a great willow Tarn O'Shanter complete with horse, bridge and witch, floats on four barges. Soon it is set afire and we watch it burn, remembering that it was only a few short Scots miles from here to FUisland Farm where Burns wrote his greatest narrative poem.
Scots are long practised in choking off emotion before it undoes them, but in Dumfries there is no sign of that.
The community is out in force, celebration in the air. There are, however, snipers hiding in the media tent ready to trot out the now tedious Scotland misrepresented/politically motivated/money wasted slant on Homecoming, but the people of Dumfries appear to be shrugging it all off and dusting down the welcome mat.
The cynics, like the waters of Nith, have been pushed back by the sheer positive force of 15,000 Doonhamers, their lanterns and their visitors. And there's a BBC man on the bridge relaying it all live to the nation.
Two days later, we get a phone call to say that a woman visiting "This is who we are" burst into tears while looking at the photographs and reading the text in the "Scottish Voices" panel.
It could have been a number of testimonies that provoked such a reaction, but perhaps it was the words of Michael Flcock, born in Forres, who is pictured at the summit of Mount MacDonald on Vancouver Island with his wife, novelist and poet Marilyn Bowering:
"It is an immensely powerful thing to leave. When I left Scotland I was 21 and it was clear to me when I left that I would never go back. That was a devastating piece of understanding - a sort of 'what the hell have I done now' moment. It still sends chills through me."
The issue of separation has never been properly addressed by Scotland or its emigrants. Government initiatives at home, even since devolution, have been lukewarm at best and Scots beyond Scotland have tended to either integrate into their new countries or form themselves into Scottish societies which, in some cases, were prone to nostalgia.
But as writer Peter de Vries (or maybe Yogi Berra) once said "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" and neither is separation. The Homecoming initiative is late, but it's better late than never and the links it is creating between Scotland and its diaspora are full of promise for the future.
PHOTO: Graeme Murdoch
ALEX SALMOND, First Minister of Scotland carrying a Saltire lantern as he leads the parade for Burns Lights in Dumfries on January 25.
Vancouver Police
Pipe Band and Tartan Pride Create 'Pure Magic'
By JIM \K WILLIAMS
VANCOUVER - The Vancouver Police Pipe Band and Tartan Pride Highland Dance Team will join forces for several ventures in 2009. No doubt for most members this year's highlight will be their visit to Portugal in April and May.
The local ensemble's invitation to Arrentala came as a result of their performances in Albertville, France, in the summer of 2007 at the Festival international de Musiques militaires.
Bands from nine countries paraded at the biggest show of its kind in France. But only the Vancouver Police Pipe Band act combined choreographed Highland dancing with the Tartan Pride Highland Dance Team.
Standing ovations were the norm when Tartan Pride joined the Vancouver Police Pipe Band before the capacity audiences.
During this exciting week a strong friendship blossomed between the Canadians and the Band of the Portuguese Air Force. Hours of unscheduled ceilidh music was one result. The invitation to join the Air Force Band in their home country was another.
The VPPB and Tartan Pride also represented Canada at Festival Internationale di Bande Militari in Modena Italy in 2007.
One official described their performance as "pure magic." Pipe Major Cal Davis of the Vancouver Police Pipe Band and Joan Murray, the director of Tartan Pride, but
popularly known as "the Dance Major," intend to recreate the "pure magic" in Portugal this spring.
Although small bagpipes are a popular folk instrument in Portugal, nothing like the Vancouver Police Pipe Band in full dress exists there. Needless to say, there is absolutely nothing like Tartan Pride Highland Dance Team in the Iberian nation.
Eighty-three bands have performed at the Arrentela Festival over the years, but the Vancouver Police and Tartan Pride will be the first-ever Canadian performers. They will also be the first Pipe Band and the first Highland Dance Team to take part.
Both groups have considerable international experience having also performed in Scotland, France, Austria, and Holland, as well as numerous North American venues.
The two local groups have often combined to perform locally: The British Columbia Highland Games in Coquitlam, "Pipes By The Sea" held annually at Ambleside Park in North Vancouver, various police functions such as The North American Police Chief's Conference and the Vancouver Policeman's Ball, as well as numerous concerts and charity events.
Anyone wishing to enjoy a sampling of the combined show is invited to attend Tartan Pride's annual "Celtic Night" held this year in Shannon Hall, Cloverdale, on February 21 which will also include the rousing music of Skystone. Tickets are available by calling (604) 576-1619.